Read the letter The Penn Traffic Co. sent to P&C employees (PDF)While the parent company of P&C Foods pleads its case in bankruptcy court and attempts to sell its stores, it is notifying some store-level employees that supermarkets will be shutting down effective Feb. 15 if they cannot be sold or the company does not get financing to continue in business while it reorganizes.

Employees who received the letter today told The Post-Standard the letters were blunt and to the point. Those employees asked not to be identified for fear of workplace repercussions.

Some of those employees, who are members of the Utica-based United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1, work at one of the flagship P&C Fresh Markets, in Towne Center at Fayetteville, one P&C asset retail analysts suggest will be hotly bid upon for acquisition by other supermarket chains.

The two-page letter tells employees they are being notified now due to the New York State Workers Adjustment Notification Act and other regulations requiring them to give 90 days’ notice of a possible shutdown of business.

The letter is signed by Christine McMahon, senior vice president of human resources at The Penn Traffic Co.

Other union employees were informed by the company today that at least two stores, including Chittenango, have a buyer. The buyer was not named, nor was the other store, but employers are required to give 90 days’ notice to employees if layoffs or sales are pending.

Penn Traffic would not respond for comment on the letter or release further information. The company is stating that “we have nothing to add beyond the news releases” issued.

Meanwhile, Penn Traffic lawyers filed documents in federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del., where the case is being heard, that its strategy is to find a buyer for its 79 stores by Jan. 10.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Peter J. Walsh late Thursday night approved an emergency interim order allowing Penn Traffic to use cash and a letter of credit to obtain financing to continue operations at least until Dec. 1, according to court documents.

P&C Foods, a fixture in Syracuse and Central New York for 67 years starting out as Producers & Consumers, a farmer-vendor cooperative, could also suffer the same fate as another longtime supermarket chain that was under The Penn Traffic Co. banner.

In 2003, Penn Traffic shuttered its 67-store Big Bear division. Big Bear was a much beloved supermarket fixture in Central Ohio, much as P&C was before being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Penn Traffic.

If Penn Traffic, once a major player in the grocery business in the Northeast, closes down shop and sells off its stores, as expected, it marks the departure of the last one-time Fortune 500 corporation to be based in Syracuse.

In recent weeks, vendors and other suppliers to Penn Traffic began cutting off shipments and deliveries to the company, fearing unpaid bills as Penn Traffic spiraled. Customers began noticing empty store shelves and freezer cases, which was still the caseThursday in several Syracuse-area stores visited by The Post-Standard.

The names of some of those vendors’ owed up to hundreds of thousands of dollars appear in hundreds of pages of court documents electronically filed with the court by Penn Traffic with the court.